Long Exposure Landscape Photography with Minimalism

Landscape Photography  •  Long Exposure Photography  •  Photography Tips

Photographs with a minimalistic approach tend to stand out from the rest. That’s because a successful photograph with a minimalistic approach often provokes a deeper meaning while having a composition that appears pretty simple. And even if you aren’t so great at capturing such though provoking photographs, you can give it a shot using a long exposure technique. In this video, photographer Brendan van Son shows you how you can create minimalist photographs just around your neighborhood:

“Minimalist photography is about making the choice to remove things from your photo rather than add elements.”

It’s a natural tendency to want to include more and more in our composition. But in reality, doing so can make the image more busy, cluttered, and visually confusing. Such images can overwhelm a viewer, and even dilute the perceived value. Minimalist photos on the other hand only present the viewer with what they need to see.

A basic approach to minimalist photography is to compose by including the one thing that you want to show. Remove everything else. If need be, you can even use a longer lens. To keep things even more simple, you can try removing color and shoot in monochrome. If there’s something that’s constantly moving, long exposure works pretty well too as it adds a dreamy feel to the overall image.

So the next time you’re out taking photos, try and visualize your composition in a simpler way. Subtract instead of adding in elements, and see how the image changes.